Catablog

Kittens bought: 1 (good); Kittens unupdateable: 1 (bad); Cats lost in the vasty deep: 1 (bad)

Seem to be continuing to use this as cat blog although will also mention in passing that have spent more hours than can shake stick at in styling new home by Nordari, then taking pics of new home, then photoshopping them lovingly into composite pic, then uploading all pics to Flickr and listing provenence of each item in each pic in tedious detail.

Whole process was interrupted because kept hitting the prim limit for the island, which bearing in mind that island has 15,000 prims is not good news. Have had small clear out which cleared 700 prims (well at one point 800 prims since inadvertantly demolished part of main office building and had to spend ages rezzing whole thing then extracting bit needed to replace missing part. hey ho had thought had locked the whole building to prevent just such an error, but no).

Still, will need to do better than that before students arrive. Could be bye bye Hobbit House but think can just do a systematic prim-trim through whole island. Will be rather like trying to reduce 9,000 word article to 6,000 words to meet ridiculous journal word limits: if go through it enough times taking out odd phrases and words on every page (rather than deleting whole section, thus ruining structure and main argument) is much better. In this case for odd words and phrases read prim-heavy ornamental carriage clocks, beavers which swim round and round, floating mini-islands which dispense ice cream etc etc.

To get back to house decoration, why o why, you may ask. Simple answer is that there is contest for best decoration of this particular house. But to be honest it really is more about taking part than winning in this case. By time winner announced will have probably forgotten even entered since attention/memory span not at optimum at present (this could be because stay up all night decorating virtual houses).

Anyway, moved Quilt the cat into new home, to make it feel cosier, and then to add cute factor to pics, since noticed that comments on 52-weeks-of-colour posts seemed to rise dramatically when included cute kitty in winsome pose (see above).

Then suddenly gave in to whim of wanting another kittycat. Had had a sort of hankering after a Siamese and last week, to put off reading yet more draft dissertation chapters from Masters students (just like now, in fact) went on impulse shopping trip. Snapping up siamese could scarcely have been easier, a quick search on "kittycats", a TP to some sim or other with rows and rows of kitten boxes, and there you were. Whereas in Kittycats early days you were lucky to see a siamese under L1000, now appear to go for 100 Linden (or possibly less, but couldn't be bothered to shop around).

TPed home, rezzed kitten box, clicked it, endured 30 minutes of coy messages about kitten opening its eyes and getting its strength up and then - woomph - a tiny kitty. A tiny kitty with "Update Me" over its head. A tiny kitty that stoutly resisted to be updated however many Updaters I rezzed and activated (see pic). Assume that kitten box had been born ages ago and it just needed too many updates. In the end filed a report, and practically at once a new kitty dropped softly into my inventory, admirably free of any red lettering above the head.

Had meant to buy yet another female cat. And indeed thought I had. However, it slowly dawned on me that the gender sign above new kitten's head was NOT THE SAME AS QUILT's so realised now had male cat after all. Had already named kitten Amane, after a schoolgirl in an anime series, but though Amane would sound pretty gender-neutral to most people (it even has the word "man" in the middle), thought it might give the cat a complex, so renamed him Stone. This is after the Nordari house which is called "May a stone guide your way". Stone seemed a masculine sort of name, and Stone (the cat) is sort of stone coloured.

Not sure whether Quilt resents new cat (she is probably thinking "how come you are too mean to keep Silky updated and rezzed, but are spending same amount on frivolous new kitten? we aren't just for Christmas you know!" No answer to this except "Stone cute, Stone new, who was Silky again?") At any rate Quilt has twice gone missing and turned up Mitsy-like in the sea underneath the house. Am particularly baffled since can't see at all how she got down there: there don't seem to be any holes in the floor and the gully she gets trapped in is entirely under the house. Perhaps she fears that she will be forced to have kitten boxes. And must admit, am rather tempted to unneuter them both and see what emerges. Whatever it is like, it will be cute.

Reflecting on glitches

Shapes lost by Linden Labs: 1 (v.v. bad); Times trapped under umbrella: 1 (OK); Times part of land unexpectedly disappeared then unexpectedly reappeared: 1 (fortuitous)
Talked to yet another person in RL who was sceptical about SL because they found it difficult, kept bumping into things etc. Ruminated today on how you *keep* bumping into things in SL, but suppose difference is you get to know:
a) bumping into things is ok;
b) how to get out of places when you are stuck;
c) when you do, and do not, need to worry when strange things happen.

For example: when I teleport in somewhere and find myself about 10 feet off the ground unable to move and with my arms and legs waving - know that this is usually because there are loads of people tp-ing to the same spot and I'm stuck on the top of someone's (currently invisible) head. Normally if you just wait they will move and you can proceed as normal, or at least you need to wait til things rez and you can see what the problem is. Glitches over the past days include:

1. My shape disappeared from the Database. I noticed this 20 mins before giving a presentation on Thursday and it did not exactly reduce the mild sense of panic I already had. Had noticed a message about something not being found in the database but simply clicked it away and it was only when I cammed out to see the poster I was preparing I suddenly realise my feet were larger than my shoes (see first pic) and my hands were like dinnerplates. A quick inspection proved that other parts of the Yoshikawa Shape were also different. Attempts to Wear "My Body Small Feet" failed miserably and so had to disappear underwater for a quick slider session, reducing (e.g. foot size) and increasing (e.g. body fat) various aspects of appearance.

My Body Small Feet is still Absent Without Official Leave. This is indeed Worrying as perhaps is sign that having reached 25,000 items my inventory will go AWOL piece by piece ... on the other hand is problem (apparently) with central database rather than actual inventory. Not sure which is worst.

2. When trying out a new DSN gift, namely parasol table and stools, placed stool too near table so that, on standing up, was catapulted onto table under parasol and trapped (see pic). This is one of those situations where one's Virtual Literacy skills come into play, since know now that easiest thing to do is to find something to sit on (in this case, stool) and then sit on it.

Also since have editing skills, could move stool backwards so didn't get trapped again. In early days would have wasted time struggling this way and that. Associated is the "when it's very laggy rez a box, sit on it and move that around" solution (see also: jumping from pose stand to pose stand to move in a crowded fashion store)

3. Teleported home to create poster during Educators Coop retreat (see last post) to find that the bit of my land that is in another sim had disappeared. In fact the sims on BOTH sides had disappeared. However, since this is mainland & my payments are up to date, did not panic. Instead took the opportunity to take mirror-water reflection of the land that HADN'T disappeared (see third picture), so actually saw it as happy chance.
Opened Map to see whether the sims were offline, but there they were, as usual, and when teleported to the land-on-other-sim - everything was as normal. Odd.
Perhaps this is actually example where should be panicing - is this the beginning of the end? The whole of the mainland flickering in and out of existence? But seems more likely that it is glitchy business-as-usual.

Where is the minaret?

Parts of building disappearing: 1 (bad); Boats appearing offshore: 1 (bad)

Checked Moorish house part of property for first time for a while and discovered that there is problem, namely, middle part of minaret appear to have gone. V. strange. Has someone hacked in and deleted it - if so - why that bit? Has earth shifted downward, leaving top part of minaret stranded? Is it simply Linden Lab glitch? Was I so tired one evening that fell into trance and went around doing random deletions? In fact is not aesthetically displeasing and leaves pleasant view in gap where middle of minaret should be but that is not the point. Wonder whether will reappear just as mysteriously.

On other hand, a boat apparently called "Demo" has appeared offshore. Is not actually in my parcel, in fact is in open sea belonging to Eric Linden, so cannot get rid of it. Quite decorative in a way, but whole point of that land is uninterrupted view of sea. Hrumph.